You don’t have to be a paranoiac to have enemies, and you don’t need to be an outlaw to want to keep your personal...
A highly useful handbook for how not to be seen—online, anyway.
Think your data and identity are safe because you’ve got an eight-character password that isn’t “God” or “1234”? Guess again, says cybersecurity expert Mitnick (Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker, 2011, etc.). In a world where your smart TV can spy on you and your cellphone can reveal your location to any party with the ability to download tracking software, the odds are that your data is…well, compromised is the least of it. Furthermore, the American government has a rubber stamp for getting at your data, even in the days after Edward Snowden—whom the author mentions at several points—pointed out how much data the government already has. One step in the right direction is to use encryption software such as PGP (“pretty good privacy”) to keep your email secure. However, warns Mitnick after a discussion refreshingly short on technical arcana if still a little daunting, “to become truly invisible in the digital world you will need to do more than encrypt your messages.” Among the other techniques he suggests are using a passphrase instead of a password, made up of information only you can know, behind a virtual private network, encrypted phone calls, and two-factor authorization, all geeky things that Mitnick describes in admirably clear detail. Other tricks: use a reloadable gift card behind an email address used only for that purpose for online shopping, if you must shop online at all. Along the way, Mitnick describes how David Petraeus was caught in electronic flagrante, how Silk Road got taken down, and how he himself got nabbed.
You don’t have to be a paranoiac to have enemies, and you don’t need to be an outlaw to want to keep your personal information personal. Though with more than a whiff of conspiracy theory to it, Mitnick’s book is a much-needed operating manual for the cyberage.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-38050-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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